It will be hard to beat Samantha Mumba’s 49% return
Louise McBride explains how the competition works and evaluates the stock market choices of our blindfolded monkey
ONCE again, it's time for the blindfolded monkey to try his luck on the stock market against last year’s winner Samantha Mumba and other well known charity stock-pickers. If he's in luck, the monkey wins €1,000 for his favourite charity. If not, his top opponent does.
It's a simple game. The monkey throws six darts at a board with stocks on it. The celebrities and business brass then take their bets on the six stocks they expect to do best in 2013. After a year, we find out whose stocks have done best — and worst. The winner gets €1,000 from Paddy Power for a charity of their choice.
The competition begins with prices quoted on the stock market on January 1, 2013 and ends in the run-up to Christmas 2013.
The first dart to be thrown by the monkey lands on the owner of the world's oldest fruit brand, Fyffes. The company which supplies bananas, pineapples and melons; has had a healthy enough year so far. Its profits were up about 30 per cent in the first six months of 2012 and earlier this month, it issued an upbeat trading statement on the back of banana shortages. But might these banana shortages work against Fyffes in 2013? If these shortages push the price of bananas up too high, punters might well be put off the monkey's favourite food. We'll just have to wait the year out and see.
The monkey's second dart heads straight for oil and gas exploration company, Aminex. The company, which operates in Tanzania, Egypt and the US, made a loss of US$3.26m (€2.6m) in the first six months of this year. However, a major gas discovery in Tanzania recently could well boost its prospects in 2013.
Maybe the monkey is feeling a bit thirsty this festive season — his next dart makes a bee line for the drinks company, C&C. The cider firm now has Tipperary Water and Finches under its belt after it snapped up the company behind those brands, the Gleeson Group, in a multi-million euro deal last November. The move is expected to give C&C firepower to do more deals — and to increase its standing in the Irish drinks market. So the monkey's dart might well be in the know here.
The monkey's fourth dart wobbles a bit before making a soft landing at Ryanair. The no-frills airline, which is doing its utmost to take full control of Aer Lingus, saw its halfyear profits up 10 per cent this year, despite higher oil prices and tough recessionary market conditions. Ryanair's boss, Michael O'Leary, might well be donning a uShanka in the New Year — the airline has held exploratory talks with a number of Russian airports in recent months.
And Russia certainly seems to be in the air — the monkey flings his next dart at the Russian gold explorer and miner, Ovoca Gold. Earlier this month, Ovoca announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell off one of its subsidiaries, which, if it goes ahead, could boost the company's cash reserves.
The monkey's final dart lands on bakery giant, Aryzta. The company owns the well-known Cuisine de France and has a joint venture with doughnut maker, Tim Hortons. Aryzta's profits were up about 13 per cent in the year to the end of July 2012 — and the company's revenues were also up this year. As food seems to be where the money is these days, 2013 could be a good year for Aryzta.